Well, as I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, I love OS X; however, the iPhone is another matter altogether. This doesn’t help matters.

Me thinks Señor Jobs has control issues.

Okay. I’ve complained about Swedish customer service, so now it’s time for me to bring up a point where Sweden shines: internet and mobile phone network access.

I don’t know what most of you have heard regarding Internet access in Sweden, but I think you’d be hard pressed to find a better place. Given way the country’s wired up, it’s not too much of a stretch to call Sweden one big ball of copper. Companies are also clever enough to utilize a pair of wires in the phone jacks as well for access. As a matter of fact, that’s exactly the kind of access I have.

At home, I have an ADSL (the connection of choice here) with up to 10 Mbps download and 1 Mbps upload). It costs me about $53 a month, but the Viking gets 10 Mbps for $44 per month including his IP telephone access with his ISP (lucky bum!). One of my friends has a fiber connection going directly into his house, and he was lucky enough to sign up with an ISP pretty much during its inception. They allowed him to tap directly into their line, and he was downloading data in the blink of an eye (probably up to 100 Mbps. It was unbelievable. Unfortunately for him, his ISP’s business grew (probably because of his good words about them), and some probably took a good look at the network, and it wasn’t long before they adjusted his access.

connection into their homes at no less than 2Part of my job is to provide Internet at home for folks at work. The latest deal they have is an ADSL connection of up to 2Mbps at a cost of around $42 per month. Yeah, it’s a bit steep by Swedish standards, but they also get access to the Big Business Customer Support section of their IT. That comes in handy.

Finding a decent wireless connection is pretty nice here as well. I’m sitting in a coffee shop in the center of Stockholm at this very moment with access to 7 unlocked networks and 6 locked (last count) [Hat tip to Erik the Red for pointing out iStumbler to me.]. Very rarely have I ever found myself out of reach of an insecure wireless network. No need for folks to worry about me, I’m not the malicious kind; however, I would definitely be one of the “6″. Call me paranoid .

When it comes to mobile phone access, Sweden is one of the most connected (click on “coverage maps” once there) countries in the world. It’s pretty much unheard of for someone to lose coverage in most places, but I have actually lost coverage once. It was up north, and I found out that my provider simply didn’t provide coverage up that far. Nevertheless, their rival provides coverage all the way up to Kiruna, which is in the Artic Circle. THAT was pretty impressive.

Something else just as impressive is the coverage in the subway. No matter where you go in the subway in Stockholm, you’ve got mobile phone coverage, and I’m not just talking emergency services. I remember going back to visit my family and friends in New York and wanting to use my mobile while I was riding the subway. I took out my phone, went to dial a number, and noticed there was no coverage. I was appalled. Then I laughed at myself and remember that the population of Manhattan is about the same of all of Sweden, so I relaxed. That said, I need to also be fair and point out that Sweden is roughly the same size geographically as California, so I don’t expect the U.S. to provide coverage this excellent… yet.

Until next time… Laterz.

So I get myself a nice MacBook Pro (2.16Ghz) for Christmas. It’s really nice. I like it a lot. During the same time I buy the MacBook I buy a wireless router. It’s only natural. Right? I even ask the sales person at the store which model is best for the MacBook I just purchased. He recommends the D-Link DI-524UP. “Thank you very much. I’ll take one,” I say in Swedish. I get home and install it. Everything is fine and dandy. I’m surfing the net, enjoying my new toy, life is fine.

Then, “That’s strange,” I think. My signal strength deteriorates. I don’t pay it so much mind.

The next day, it happens again.

Then again the next day.

It continues for a very frustrating week. Then I discover this.

Nevertheless, I’m not going to simply give in and get another router. No! I’m a tech, doggonit! I’ve got to find out whether or not there’s SOME way it will work.

I try changing to the the various types of WPA encryption (NOTE: Surely you didn’t think I was NOT using encryption for my wireless connection. While I appreciate my neighbors doing it, I know a little better than that. I’m a technician for goodness sake!). No good. The connection still drops after awhile. I even break down and try WEP 128Kbps encryption. No good.

That’s it. Time for another router.

Off to the store I go.

Sidebar: Shopping in Sweden. Normally, I’m not one to get angry. Not at all. I try to take it easy. But I sort of forgot I was in Sweden for juuust a moment, and noticed that one of the sales personnel was just done helping a customer. I had the nerve to actually ask about a particular router. He looked at me with a bit of an attitude and said (in Swedish), “Well, I can’t memorize every router on the rack, but if you read the sides of the boxes you should be able to read which model they are. Otherwise you can take a number and wait.” You see, this is the land of the “nummerlapp”, or number ticket. It’s as Swedish as ABBA, and I am NOT joking. You can ask any Swede whose been here in the last 40 or so years and they’ll tell you that I’m spot on. Any store you go in that has constant business has a machine that gives out tickets with numbers on them. Anyway, this young man got me as angry as I’ve been in the last couple of years. I mean, here I am coming in this computer store, more than ready to quickly drop my 700 Swedish crowns ($100), head home, and get on with it. But NOOOOO! I’m in the land of, “Customer service? Huh? What’s that? Take a number pal!” There are many things done well in Sweden. Many. Mobile telephones (though the Finns still have the edge, in my humble opinion!), mobile telephone switches, IT, PR, coffee, chocolate, music (and I’m not just talking ABBA here), and vacation packages (bet you didn’t know this!), but customer service still has a LOOONG way to go. I think a lot of it has to do with most large stores like these being owned by people who rarely if ever pay a visit. If they did, they’d probably notice young… people like the one I ran into. I’ve been to smaller shops with the owners on the premises, and the staff are usually quite courteous. I’ve lived in Sweden for over 10 years now, and I can tell you that the rest of Europe has nothing to worry about as far as Swedish customer service.

Okay. Let me get back on track now. What brand router am I looking for? A Linksys. Now, had I really been paying attention to my colleague, The Viking, at work, who’s opinion I respect a great deal, I would’ve noticed immediately his disappointment at my saying I bought a D-Link in the first place. Well, I didn’t. But I had enough sense to know that I was buying a Linksys this time around. I eventually picked up the WRT54G model and headed home. I connected, configured, and started it up, and have been connected ever since. I’ve even found some pretty interesting info about the WRT models since thanks to another friend I’ll simply refer to as Erik the Red (with genuine Russian blood in his veins, no less).

So here I sit, signal strength just fine, writing what I thought was a quick entry for my blog, watching “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, and waiting for more snow (FINALLY!).

I’ve been a Cisco fan for some time, but I like them more than ever now. Go figure.

BTW, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is STILL an awesome film to watch. An absolute martial arts classic.

It seems Apple made $1 billion last quarter. That’s a chunk of change. Of course, selling 21 million iPods (90 million total for those who care) will do that. Mac sales rose 40% and Mac shipments rose 28%. Fewer viruses, better security, a nicer more intuitive interface, as well as the ability to run Windows as well as OS X probably has something to do with that. Apple shareholders must be smiling as much as Lt. Dan (think Forest Gump folks. The Apple moment in teh movie? Hang with me now).

As someone who switched from Rio to an iPod Nano and then straight on up to the big boy iPod Video (80 Gb), I understand the increase. Obviously I’m not the only one who likes the iPod. I especially like the fact that I can use my iPod Video as a portable hard drive.

All that said, YET AGAIN!, I can’t help but wonder what Señor Jobs is thinking by locking up the iPhone. Now it seems users won’t be able to use iPhones as portable hard drives (not that they’d be able to move much with just 4-8Gb anywho). I just don’t get it…

Forgive the short post, but I’ll make up for it soon.

So it seems some of the Apple faithful are starting to see that the iPhone may not be all it’s been touted to be. It appears the Safari that’s going to be in the iPhone will not be the version we Mac users are used to in our regular OS X systems. Now that I mention it, the OS X may not be the OS X we’re used to either. So what does that mean for all of us who get a kick out of checking out the daily e-mail from Version Tracker? It means we’ll simply have to wait until we get home to our full blown versions of both Safari and OS X if we want to try out some new shareware/freeware. Developers must really be wondering what the deal is. Personally, after seeing all the free developer tools that come with Tiger (and there are a TON!), I can’t help but wonder what Señor Jobs is thinking. Looks like a clear case of one step forward for Tiger and two steps back for iPhone.

“Every once in awhile a revolutionary product comes along and changes everything.”
Steve Jobs (MacWorld 2007 Keynote Address, San Francisco)

With much excitement and fanfare, Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone at the MacWorld 2007 Keynote Address earlier this month. I learned a couple of things from that address:

1) Though I’m going absolutely gah-gah over the MacBook Pro I bought myself for Christmas, I’m definitely not like some Apple fans out there.

2) The expectations of mobile phone users in the U.S. are a lot lower than the folks in Europe and Asia. I know that sounds harsh, but just stick with me and maybe you’ll understand why later.

To my surprise, I found so many things that needed addressing, at the behest of wise friend, I decided to chop this up and address it in separate blogs. Yep. It’s that bad.

In all fairness, I have to say that I have not placed my hand on an iPhone, nor have I seen one up close. Based on the pictures I’ve seen on the net, it’s a pretty slick looking phone. Nevertheless, I’m addressing what I’ve read the phone can and cannot do.

The Single Choice: Cingular
You have one, that’s right ONE option for a phone provider: Cingular. Forgive me, but I’m a consumer who really likes companies competing for my business. It could be because I’ve lived in Sweden for over 10 years and can recall life with one sole phone provider, Telia. Those were dark days my friend. No thoughts of, “Well that’s a ridiculous price. I’m taking my business elsewhere!” Nope. You paid it because they had the monopoly. Why on earth Apple is choosing to intentionally inflict this sort of pain on the loyal Apple fans is beyond me. I’ve listened to some podcasts of folks who already had one or more subscriptions saying they were simply going to have to get Cingular as well just so they could get an iPhone. Those are the truly die-hard Apple fringe. Will their ranks grow? Possibly. But not by much if you ask me. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple tries something like that in Europe. Interesting indeed. Let’s stay tuned for this one.

No Adding Games
It seems you can’t add games to it because Apple wants to control the look and feel. WHAT THE?!? After $500-$600, the least you can do is let me control the look and feel! First, I’m not really the gamer type. I have a Game Cube sitting in the living room, and the main reason for its existence is Madden 200* (whatever year. It doesn’t matter. I’m buying it) and Call of Duty. Outside of that, you can keep the rest. No offense to all of the other fabulous games out there, but I simply don’t have the time. All that said, because of my youngest daughter wanting a game for her iPod Video, I ended up purchasing Pac-Man, Sudoku, Tetris, and Mini-Golf all in a 48-hour time span. While I’m not totally WOW’d by Pac-Man, all the rest are great. I don’t regret having purchased any of them (for only 45 Swedish Crowns (about $6)), but as a former Pac-Man wizard with a joystick, I have to say the experience is NOT the same with a click-wheel. Moving right along, if Apple doesn’t see the potential in this, Steve Jobs has lost it. I’m seriously doubting he’s lost it.

It doesn’t have games. This leaves me speechless.

More to come.

So why am I starting a blog? Well, it’s not that I have some desire to see my writing on the internet, though that’s not a bad thing in and of itself for those who desire to do it. It has more to do with believing I can offer a unique type of criticism. A sort of right-place-right-time view. I’m an American IT tech (telephone technician & systems administrator) living in Sweden — not to be confused with Switzerland, for those who are geography-challenged. Anyone who knows anything about tech knows that Sweden can more than hold its own when it comes to IT. And when it comes to mobile phones, both Sweden, land of Ericsson, and her neighbor, Finland, land of Nokia — yep, that’s where Nokia comes from, not Japan — lead the way. After living in the midst of these battling mobile phone giants, I’ve learned a few things about their products. Definitely enough to say I’m an experienced user.

So, now Apple has produced a mobile phone. The iPhone. There’s a lot of hype surrounding it. But is it really all that Mac fans (DISCLAIMER: I’m typing this blog entry on my MacBook Pro. I LOVE IT! But please don’t mistake me for someone who’ll scream “Apple or nothing!”) claim it to be? I don’t really know, but I plan on taking a look at what all the hype is about.

Stay tuned.